Oh yeah, I remember Beyonce...

Beyonce. Yeah. That's kinda cool...I guess. But very "five years ago." Then again, so is the shuttle.

You'll dance to anything...

"Dull people will always cheer a bold experiment that goes wrong."

Hey, I'll cheer for anything that delivers a change from the tedium of daily life. :) And I like a cool concept, especially when it's doomed. So of course I liked the cube. But, of course, I didn't buy one. Duh!

I wouldn't say I'm dull, exactly; I'm just getting an early start on the weekend. This round's on me!

I don't want to get in trouble...

OK, so while the very first Lego Star Wars was pretty good, everything that has happened since Lucas noticed that it existed can be described in one word. However, I don't know the reg policy on one-word comments, so I've explained myself here. Oh, that word?

Yaaaaaawn.

*Huge* performance advantage

oooh, 30 percent faster. I can see why people would subvert their site security policy for this huge improvement in speed. Hold me back.

So it's dated...

What, it doesn't have a cover-based shooting mechanic? I'll bet it isn't "cinematic" either. I'm crying.

Let's see, what have I been playing lately: Descent 2, Deus Ex, New Vegas... hmm, yes a dated looking app with low polygon counts is going to really offend my eyes.

Melt-through, anyone?

So maybe, possibly, there might be a melt-through. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/08/3238720.htm Sounds like they're trying not to give us the bad news all at once.

Fukushima is still a good example of how good engineering not only attempts to minimize the chance of failure, but also set up failure modes to mitigate the effects of worst-case scenarios. As events unfold, it is also becoming a reminder of what is at risk.

There are three parts to risk management: 1) the odds, 2) what you have to gain, and 3) what you risk losing. The problem with nuclear power is not 1 or 2, it's 3. If I wasn't addicted to cheap, plentiful electricity, I'd probably be against it...

At least you *can* turn it off...

Thanks for the heads-up! It's not like Facebook bothers to tell us when it makes changes like this. What would I do without El Reg?

OK, so I guess it kind of *is* a meltdown. Three, actually...

"Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced full meltdowns at three reactors in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March, the country's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters said Monday."

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/06/06/japan.nuclear.meltdown/index.html

Oh well.

Version... 7.1?

I still don't quite understand why the first version of Windows Phone is called 7.

Well, that's not true... I *do* understand: they're ashamed of version 1 because of past performance. Everyone knows that version 1 of anything Microsoft releases is incomplete and generally to-be-avoided, version 2 is probably useful but not complete, and version 3 is probably worth buying. So they call it "7" to confuse us and give us the impression that it's somehow as mature as Windows 7. But of course that doesn't work. All this means is that we will wait for Windows Phone 10 and then go queue up to buy one. It's not difficult math. What, do they think consumers are stupid?

Oh, right. Never mind.

Not so bright, was he?

So the FTP account was easily traced to him? What would we do if there were smart criminals?

Gravity - it does so many things!

Tide comes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication!

^ Gravity = proof of God! :D

Cautious

But we need to be cautious, because treating powerful people the same as regular people is a slippery slope, and could lead to equality.

Twice?

"He racks the gun twice." When gun fanatics use this highly technical gun jargon like "rack", it totally leaves me behind. How do you rack a gun, and why would you do it twice?

It doesn't look like the camera was hit, it looks like maybe its brightness auto adjusted after the muzzle flash. Or maybe it's one of those self-healing video cameras I've heard so much about lately.

TV news. *sigh*

Delayed vs Buggy As Hell

I'll take "Forever Delayed" any day, over some^H^H^H^H most game releases that are barely playable. Seems like about half the recently released games require 12 months of patching before they reach a playable state, but by then the reputation of the game is so sullied that sales are in the toilet, and the developer abandons support to instead make their next game.

I'd rather have $60US in my pocket waiting for a game that is never released, than an on-time release of another turd sandwich.

Yes, the end result was minor...

But there was risk. To overcompensate by calling it a minor incident with no danger at all is to invite a reaction that negates the point you are selling.

Why oh why did I click Play?

I may never forgive El Reg for posting this video, or myself for clicking on it.

Calling this track "derivative" would be like calling the music it copies "derivative." In fact, trying to describe the lameness of this track is as pointless as the track itself.

Oh man, that one stung.

Unicorns, Santa Claus, DNF

I preordered, and I'll believe it when I see it. Actually, no, I won't believe it then either. When it's running on my system I still won't believe it.

But it's Ubisoft...

They made some good games once. I'm generally opposed to edutainment, but I do have a Gibson Explorer hanging on the wall right next to my PS3 gaming station... if they do it well it could be good. One for the "wait and see" list, I think.

Tampering in God's Domain

And whatever you want to call it, we will never know what causes climate change, because any time humans try to launch a satellite to get useful data that would help answer that question, the hand of god swats it down. Cower, puny mortals!

Trivialized

It's not right to trivialize someone's firmly held beliefs like that. If a person says he's a member of the Jedi religion, he is. That's how religion works. It doesn't matter what others think about it.

Pardon me for asking...

This may seem like a weird question, but... WHY? Why would anyone want to DDOS Wordpress? I really don't get it.

The world is going to hell. I'm going to get a beer.

She knows why men watch porn, but...

Does she know why *women* watch porn? Should we be worried when she implies that she doesn't?

God knows, WBC could use some good PR, any good PR...

When you want to be a martyr that badly, it's just sad.

"It's just sad" pretty much sums up everything about Westboro. Actually.

Beyerdynamic FTW

I Heart My DT880s! (insert multiple exclamation points here)

You can order them in custom colors too. If you live in the right country. :(

Great for music *and* gaming. Sure, a street price of about $200 (us) is a bit high, but compared to about $160 for Razer's crappy surround headphones, it's not bad. Which is exactly what I compared them to.

Incidentally, my Razer crappy surround headphones are going on eBay this afternoon...you should be able to get them for under $50. So if "three figures" seems like too much, buy my crappy phones instead

You are preapproved for a free trip...

"...claim that prosecutors must charge him with an offence, and therefore disclose the evidence against him, in order to qualify for extradition."

No, that's not true. We can just send him to Guantanamo any time we... wait, did you say EXTRAdition? I thought you said RENdition, because here in the US, we routinely disappear people to other countries without any kind of due process. It's practically legal if they've been publicly accused of terrorism.

I get those two things confused all the time! Of course you can't extradite someone without some sort of reason. Heh, silly me. Is it beer time yet?

Are we supposed to identify with...that vocal?

You should only perform other people's music if you think you can improve on it. Sadly, hubris tends to render this rule less useful.

I think they should have used "Heroin." No, not the song, the drug.

Yeah!

Speaking as a non-disabled gamer, I agree! With modern consoles that are basically special-purpose gaming computers, the 20-year-old console paradigm of hard-coding one or two control schemes is lame.

Irony!

Authority figure has plan to "deal with those sneering punks on the corner once and for all" and ends up in way over their heads. It's like a sitcom. (Except that it's funny.)

The assumption that Anonymous had (or has) shown their strength, considering the organization name, seems pretty poor.

Useful Comments

I had to check the reviews again after reading the developer response. I don't see his complaint, as the few comments seem to be pretty helpful:

* It is not convenient to slide to get to the characters/symbols

* People still need some form of auto correct, which is not supported (?)

* Runs very slow on HTC Hero

And an average score of 3 stars (no pun intended) speaks for itself.

With only four comments and 16 ratings, the app is already on track for a big slice of failure. It looks like some good research went into the idea, and I find it appealing. But, making good software is harder than it sounds. The concept is great, but the reviews say, clearly, "stay away!"

Top men... top men.

When you say "Top App", I assume that you mean "two out of five stars" based on AndroidPIT users, or 3/5 in the Marketplace.

Let's see what people have to say about it. "Almost unusable." One star from a user angry that it's non-refundable. "Stock keyboard is much more friendly."

Top shelf!

Surely you can't be serious!

"...making it criminal is a joke of democracy."

Welcome to the world of "representative" democracy. :(

Well, was it funny?

Now I want to hear the joke and decide for myself. If I was a survivor of something awful, and I was described as unlucky, I would simply agree. On the other hand, if the surrounding tirade was coarsely constructed and insensitive, I would probably decide whether it was insensitive based on whether or not I hurt myself laughing.

(Beer, because, uh, because I like beer?)

How deep does the disease go?

I wonder what percentage of kids are addicted to baseball, football, or other sports, by the same standards?

Feline Dentistry vs 3D

It's a depressing result--as a gamer I already have several games that support 3D, but I also probably won't be buying a 3D setup until at /least/ next summer, probably more like a year. Because they're so expensive! I love gaming but where am I supposed to get the money to afford it? Heck, my cat needs dental work; as much as my geeky self is ashamed to admit it, my cat's teeth may actually be more important than 3D. I suppose that puts things in perspective a bit. (ooh, did you see the joke I made there?)

The same applies to 3D on the PC, actually. I'd have gone 3D a long time ago if I could afford a high-scan-rate monitor. But... ouch!